


The Confessional

by islasands



Series: The Confessional [1]
Category: Adam Lambert (Musician)
Genre: Churches & Cathedrals, Confessions, M/M, Votive Candles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-18
Updated: 2011-07-18
Packaged: 2017-10-21 12:37:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,213
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/225234
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/islasands/pseuds/islasands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adam is in Paris, alone. He's meant to be in London, doing promo for his new album, but has escaped to France for some private R&R. He's sick and tired of 'behaving', sick of being under constant public and private scrutiny. By chance the actor, Louis Garrel, crosses his path. Together they share a most unusual and uplifting 'religious' experience...</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Confessional

  


Part 1: _Dishabille_

Back in Europe, back in Paris, and back with his back against a wall, Adam slowly undid his shirt. He unzipped his boots and threw them across the room. He poured a drink and walked out onto the balcony. The city sky-rise had been intercepted by a thick band of fog, giving the street level buildings a grim, Dickensian quality, while their upper parts emerged, mirage-like, in the clear night sky, lights twinkling, ethereal looking, as though at any moment they might slip their moorings and float away. He wished he could do that himself. Float away. He lifted his glass and examined its contents. Ice cubes were jostling for space. He shook the glass. He took out a cube and dropped it over the side of the balcony. My God, he thought, instantly remorseful. What if that lands on someone’s head? He was only several stories up, but still. He gingerly looked over the side. To his shock and horror a person had stepped out onto the road and was looking up.

“What the fuck?” the man shouted.  His accent was French, and because his face was clearly outlined by dark hair Adam could tell he was young, about his own age. A small, intermittent, rosy gleam showed that he was smoking.

“I’m so sorry,” Adam called down.

The man raised his arm and made gestures towards his head.

“Are you a child? A lunatic?” he called out.

“Wait,” Adam called down. But the man had thrown up his arms in disgust and walked on. Adam didn’t stop for his coat but ran down the stairs, shirt unbuttoned, hair on end, and in his stocking feet. He ran out of the foyer and onto the footpath.

“Wait up,” he shouted at the figure as he disappeared into a group of oncoming pedestrians. By the time he reached them, and ran through them, the man he was following had miraculously disappeared.  The pathway ahead was empty. A few people were walking on the other side of the street but the stranger was not amongst them. Adam looked down at his feet. He was panting. He became aware that he was in fact standing in the glow pouring out from the windows of a cafe or bar. He stared at the window. The stranger was standing there, watching him, calmly smoking. Adam grinned and shrugged, and held out his palms. “Shit happens,’ he said. The stranger smiled. He held up his hand as a stop sign then disappeared.

‘So you are my assailant, raining missiles onto me from the sky,” a voice said. “If you were not so, -“ he looked Adam up and down, “ so ‘ _dishabille_ ’, and perhaps fragile in the mind, I would call the police.”

“Thank you,” Adam said politely. “You’re very kind. I wasn’t aiming at you, by the way. It wasn’t personal. Just foolish. I hope you are not hurt.”

“Your lips are turning blue,” the stranger said. "Come inside.” He refused to take no for an answer, almost pushing Adam up the steps to the bar. He opened the door for him and took his elbow. The patrons of the bar, who clearly knew the stranger, called out to him in French, expressing their amusement. The stranger led him to a table, pulled out a chair, and with a hand on his shoulder pushed him into a sitting position. He called out to the barman as he sat down.

He sat himself down opposite and stared, unsmiling, at Adam. He took out a lighter and lit the candles set on a small wrought iron candelabra  in the centre of the table. “It is not every day that a handsome American man throws rocks at me, just to get my attention, and then chases me down the road in an open shirt.” He leant sideways and looked down. “And without shoes!”

A waiter arrived and placed a carafe of wine and two glasses on the table.

“Has a cat got your tongue?” the stranger asked, as he poured the drinks.

Adam sipped his drink. He could feel a crackling energy starting up in the back of his brain. It was a bad sign. He’d kept his reckless streak in check for a whole year while he worked on his new album, worked on his new love, worked all fucking day and night under the unending scrutiny of the media, his friends and family and fans. He threw a mental match at the dry grasses in his brain. The fire sprang to life.

“The truth is – Louis,” he began, taking a wild guess from the conversations that had erupted when they walked in. “ I am psychic.”

Louis smiled. He blew smoke across the table.

“Psychic? And what has that to do with me?” he asked.

“Tonight,- everything,” Adam said. He leant forward, put his elbows on the table, and rested his head on his hands. “What happened is this. I was standing on my balcony, watching the fog put the city to sleep. But I didn’t want to sleep. I am a stranger in your city. So I sent out – transmitted - a psychic message, asking the spiritual powers-that-be to bring me the most beautiful fuck in Paris. I took the ice from my drink,” - he gave a demonstration - “ and dropped it over the balcony. And here you are.”

“Voila!” Louis said.

“Voila,” Adam repeated. He drank his wine and poured another. Louis continued smoking, He gazed thoughtfully at Adam. Then with a quick, angry movement he stubbed out his cigarette, pushed back his chair, stood up, did up the buttons of his coat and wrapped a scarf around his neck.

“You impertinent, pushy, vulgar, randy, spiritually ignorant, American!” he said. ‘Get up.”

“I want to finish my drink,” Adam said calmly. He was happy. You win some, you lose some. Besides, he needed warming up before taking his bare feet and shirt-sleeves back out onto the cold city street.

“No, no. You come with me,” Louis said. “You owe it to me. You forget my injury. Perhaps there is even blood.” He ruffled at his hair. “Where is your hotel?”

Adam looked up. Louis’s expression was grave but something  in his eyes was glinting. It’s not far from the truth, he thought to himself. He probably _is_ the most beautiful fuck in Paris.

“Randy,” he said to Louis, as he stood up. “Pushy and vulgar.” He felt inordinately pleased at Louis’s use of the word 'randy'.

“Indeed,” Louis said brusquely. He paused a moment and suddenly divested himself of his coat. He disregarded Adam’s protests and helped him put it on.

As they ran up the street, Adam asked him where they were going. They turned in at the foyer to his hotel.

‘We are going to your hotel room. You will check that my brains are not leaking from the wound you inflicted. And then, by way of saving your ignorant, pagan soul, we are going to church. What floor?’ he asked.

‘You speak perfect English,” Adam said, as they faced each other in the elevator. Louis, as though offended,  burst out in a torrent of French. It was all completely unintelligible to Adam, but he was able to guess, by the way his vehement speech was accompanied by a very pointed perusal of his face, his hair, and throat, that he was not talking about God.

Part 2. _Filaments_

If Adam had fond hopes for some action in his hotel room, they soon were dashed. Louis sat on a chair at the dining table, lit a cigarette, and bent his head, pointing at the place where he had been struck by the cube of ice. Adam stood in front of him, parted his hair and searched for the non-existent injury. He was acutely aware of dark undercurrents to their surface banter, aware that he was lingering over his solicitous examination of Louis’ head, barely able to desist from threading his fingers through his hair and pressing his finger tips against his scalp. “Not there,” Louis said. “No, - here,” placing his hand over Adam’s hand in order to guide him. The tension between their bodies was so palpable it would not have surprised Adam to look down and see their bodies joined by a ligature of fine steel filaments, criss-crossing from body part to body part, and pulling ever tighter.

Louis looked up at him. He held up his hand and was about to draw on his cigarette – still looking into Adam’s eyes – when he looked down and exclaimed,”Look! Look how nervous I am!” And his hand was, indeed, shaking. “If you could be so careless about my head, who knows what else you might do!”

Adam reluctantly stepped back. “I can’t find anything wrong. I really can’t.” He felt unnerved by the strengthening - almost audible twanging - of those invisible cords. He felt unnerved by what he had begun and wondered if he had it in him to finish it. He was not monogamous by nature, nor was he shackled by hard and fast rules of fidelity, but his heart had thrown a handful of question marks onto a page in his brain. “What are you doing? Do you really want to put your relationship on the line? Is that what is happening here?”

The faltering of his purpose had not gone unnoticed. Louis stood up and took charge of the situation. “My God, what a mess you have made, both of this room _and_ of your appearance. Where are your clothes? Pagan or not, you cannot attend church looking like a ruffian.” He walked around the room, picking things up, putting them down. He followed Adam into the bathroom and stood behind him, watching as Adam threw water on his face and ran his wet hands through his hair. “I cannot believe you grew this all by yourself,” Louis said, reaching his hand around to touch Adam’s brow and then run his palm up the shock of his hair. Their eyes met in the mirror. “It’s like a small field on top of your head. Small creatures could run around in it.” He smiled. Their gazes locked. The tension between them, which had dissipated in the brisk wind of Adam’s doubts, returned. Adam returned the smile and realized, too late, that he had allowed his desire to show in his eyes. He could feel it running into his gaze like liquid sugar. His nostrils had flared.

“Now, your coat, your gloves,” Louis said firmly. “I hope you have gloves. And I hope you are not making light of my invitation. “ He turned aside and took a towel off the rail. Adam leant on the hand basin while Louis dabbed his face with it. The conflagration he had thought to light in his brain, - and his groin - had gone out. It had been replaced by a vault of darkness in which a solitary, tiny, unwavering flame burned.

Part 3: _Bathing in Passion_

They walked down an alleyway between the church and adjoining school buildings and crossed a courtyard. Adam paused to look at a full size statue standing against a little grove of trees. Presumably it was Mary, the mother of the Christian god. The security lights in the eaves of the building cast her in a ghostly light. Her hands were in an attitude of prayer, her face pale, her lips smiling serenely, but her imperfections – an oddly dark, almost beard-like, staining of the chin area, a large chip in her nose, and a missing fingertip – made her look less like the mother of a god and more like someone who had been neglected, left out in the rain like a forgotten doll.

Louis took his arm. He walked him to a porch, rummaged in his pocket for a key, and looked at Adam as he turned it in the lock. He muttered something in French.

“What did you say?’ Adam asked. Since leaving the hotel they had hardly communicated, not in words, and scarcely with glances. But as they walked it had felt as though they were walking on either side of a dark stream, and each step was taking them closer to a bridge. The silence they were sharing had substance, like running water. Now, standing in the low porch, Adam felt the water of that silence, the water of that stream, swirling around his legs, and slowly rising. Louis put his hand on Adam’s chest, then on his face. Adam caught his hand and held his wrist.

“I was wondering if you know the danger of using your psychic gift to procure a beautiful fuck," Louis said softly.

Adam released Louis’ wrist and roughly pulled him against him. Their faces came together, so close that kissing seemed inevitable, and they did, indeed, allow their lips to touch.

“I was also saying that I like your face,” Louis whispered. “I had no idea I would like it quite this much.”

Adam shook his head. He felt full to overflowing with the desire to share and not just sexually. He wanted them to share breaths, and semen, and ideas, and sweat, and jokes, and sadness. He became aware that Louis’ breath smelled like hay, like summer, and that through the thickness of his clothing he could feel his body tremoring. And as for those dark eyes and their intelligent, sensitive, condescendingly patient expression., he wanted to do things to him that would make them close. Overwhelmed by this rush of sensations and emotions, he was shocked when a voice suddenly surfaced in his brain, a familiar voice saying sadly. “I miss you baby. Can’t wait till you’re home.” He frowned. He pulled Louis closer.

“Your breath smells of hay,” he said.

“Come,”Louis said, disengaging and opening the door.

They went down a dark corridor, up some steps, along another corridor, through a kind of covered atrium, and lastly through a tall, narrow side-door and into the church. Adam took in a deep breath. If a stream had been running between them then this is where it ended, - in a pool of shadows and soft light and heavy, dark silence. They walked up the centre aisle and stood in front of the altar. Behind it, the tall, arched stained glass windows were sufficiently lit to betray some of their colours. Louis turned to Adam.

“Once you get people out of a church you can imagine a god, exhausted from carrying burdens, coming in to rest for a while in the peace and quiet.”  His fingers traced the outline of Adam’s lips. ‘We’re all gods” he said, “of our little worlds.”

They kissed. They held each, still kissing, as they lowered to the floor. They lay facing one another, their bodies pressing into one another. They touched each other’s heads, and cheeks, and noses, and eyes. It was like bathing in passion, Adam thought. Though their kisses became intense, and the need to get closer and closer still became more necessary, there was something restrained, controlled, in their embrace. Adam looked past Louis’ face at the altar, looming above them, clothed in white, and up to the darkly laced web of the windows. He looked into Louis’ eyes, and was suddenly filled with a surging of emotion, dark, nameless and completely devoid of thought. It rose up in his chest, primeval, masculine, determined.  He felt he would follow this man to the ends of the earth, following after him with a lean, untiring desire to defend, and cherish and – . He suddenly lurched upward and threw himself on top of Louis. And to fuck. To sacredly, mindlessly, purely and honestly - fuck.  

The vault of the church, arching above them, was filled with dignified silence, as the two men, lying on the ground before the altar, made offerings to one another of their flesh, given freely and without stint.

Part 4: _The Confessional_

They lay side by side, still naked, using their coats for covers and prayer kneeler cushions for pillows. Louis was smoking, and from time to time he passed the cigarette to Adam. ‘There is nothing quite so satisfying as taking a man’s cock in your mouth at the same time as he sucks you in.” Louis turned and looked at Adam. “Sucking you into his private world.”

Adam raised up on one elbow. He drew back Louis’ coat and ran his hand over his breast, splaying his hand so that he could feel the nipple in the centre of his palm. He ran it lightly down to his abdomen. He drew the coat down further to expose his genitals. He sat up and crouched over them, nuzzling them with his face. Louis put his hand on Adam’s head. He felt himself twitching. He shivered. Adam replaced the coat and then sat up. He tucked his own coat beneath him, and drew up his legs. “What do you see in my private world?’ he asked.

Louis put an arm behind his head. “Not much.”

Adam burst out laughing. They both laughed.

 “Yes, not much,” Louis went on. “A bit like this church – at this hour.”

“Why did you say that, about being in danger?”

“You want to make a decision. You are using me to help you make it.”

“And the danger is?”

Louis sat up. He knelt in front of Adam. “You tell me.”  He suddenly leapt up. “Put your coat on. Just the coat.” He glanced down at him. “But if your feet are cold you may wear your shoes.”

Adam followed him down the central aisle, then across to the side of the church where there stood a tall, box like structure, with three wooden doors, the central one topped with an ornately carved lintel, and beneath that a small arched window.  Louis opened one of the doors and held out an arm. “In you go,” he said. Adam stared inside the cubicle. A seat ran along one side. The wall that separated it from the central cubicle was half of solid wood, half of a diamond patterned lattice.

“I will go in here, I will be your priest, and you can tell me about your private world.”

Adam went in and closed the door. The only light came through the lattice. He could hear Louis going in and closing his door and sitting down.

“Begin,” Louis said.

Adam smoothed his knees with his hands. He peered at the lattice.

“When I saw you, when I first saw you tonight, not at the bar, but when you looked up at my balcony,-“

“When you attacked me with a block of ice,” Louis said.

“Don’t interrupt. But yes, right then, right at that moment. There was something, something about you looking up and me looking down, that made me run. I had no idea who you were, but I thought if I could only catch up with you, grab your sleeve, make you stop and look at me, I could ask you what the fuck I am doing with my life and you would know the answer. Who-ever you were. You would know.”

There was a long pause.

‘Is that it?” Louis asked.

“That’s it.”

“Then do it,” Louis said. Adam heard him stand up and open the door. He sat there, hands on his knees, and thought about what he had said. He knew perfectly well what he was doing with his life. He made sure of it. He controlled every single aspect of it, right down to the terms under which he was prepared to love. The only time he relinquished those reins was on stage. On stage he felt shamelessly self-centred. It was liberating. He didn’t give a shit what anyone thought of him or expected from him because there wasn’t a shit to give. There was no self-editing. He gave his whole dirty, loving, bitchy, domineering self to the music and to _them_ – the audience. He threw lines out into the crowd, baited with his self, and pulled in them in. Lines, wires, cords. Filaments of connection. My God, he thought. I _fuck_ them. And they fuck me. He suddenly felt elated.

Adam burst out of the cubicle. He looked around for Louis. He was standing at the front of the church, off to one side, smoking as he lit a slender votive taper. Adam ran across to one of the pews, jumped up and then ran across the backs of the pews, up and over, one after another. Louis watched him, candle in hand, laughing.

“Fuck you and fuck my private life,” Adam whooped. He grabbed Louis’ sleeve and dragged him to the wide carpeted steps that led up to the altar. He pushed him down, forcing him to kneel. He pulled up Louis’ coat and threw it over his head. Louis thrust out his hand to preserve the life of the candle. “Holy fuck, I want you and I fucking come prepared.” He dug in his pocket and found the little tube. He relished applying it. “Look at your arse! The most beautiful fuck in Paris, and all mine.” He suddenly couldn’t bear seeing the coat. “Take it off,” he said. Louis handed him the candle. He took off the coat. Then he half lay, legs apart, on the second step. Adam held the taper above him, and surveyed Louis’ body, his erection, his face. As he handed the taper to Louis a drop of wax fell on his abdomen. He flinched and widened his eyes. “Do that to me,” Adam said. 'I want you to do that to me." He raised Louis’ legs, tilting him back to obtain entrance to his anus. He slowly penetrated him first with a finger, then fingers, then his cock. He pushed himself in slowly,  gently lowering himself onto Louis’ chest.  He let his legs relax. Louis gripped him with his raised legs. He held the taper high above Adam’s back and every time a drop of the wax fell Adam jolted and jerked inside him.

The candle went out.

When they left the church they discovered the fog had lifted. The night sky was visible, starless but amongst the cloud a small moon shone, surrounded by a dirty rose coloured halo.

Louis went with Adam to his hotel, and tucked him into bed. He wouldn’t stay. He sat on the edge of the bed and kissed the palm of Adam’s hand.

“Can I see you again?’Adam asked.

“Of course,” Louis smiled.

“I mean, again and again,” Adam whispered, closing his eyes.

Part 5. _A Calling Card from Paris_

Upon his return to America Adam had made a difficult, as in pain inflicting, decision. He broke up with his boyfriend, with no explanation other than the one that was the truth. “I love you, but I can’t be with you. Sooner or later I’ll ruin it.”

He became less forthcoming with his friends and some of them felt hurt. He knew this, knew that they were perplexed, even worried, about his reticence. He had always been there for them, a shoulder for them to lean on or cry on. Questions about the effects of fame began to circulate. It was tempting to put the changes in his demeanour down to a ‘diva’ effect. But the appellation wouldn’t stick. He was courteous as ever, he was the same amount of fun. He still took time out to celebrate their good fortunes, or commiserate with their struggles but something had changed. “He’s become a closed book,” one of them said. And it was true. He seldom confided in any one of them. It never occurred to them to think that he never had. He had always been the listener in his friendship deals.

Now he gave off an air of self-sufficiency that was off-putting.  He seemed indifferent to the loss of his partner, a man most people thought had been perfect for Adam. Was he growing a hard shell? Was he secretly suffering? Was he hiding a secret?

Adam knew their perplexity, saw it in their eyes. He didn’t care.

One evening his mother, who alone was unfazed by the changes in her son, stood leaning on the kitchen counter, talking down the hallway to Adam who was dressing after a shower. He came into the kitchen, wearing only his pants, and began making a coffee. His mother came up to him and wiped some drops of water from his back. They were rolling down from his wet hair.

“What are these?” she asked, touching his back. “They're like little scars.”

Adam turned around. ‘A calling card. From Paris.”

His mother calmly met his gaze. She was neither curious nor concerned.

“You’re a late developer,” she said warmly. ‘You’ve grown into your own shoes. You’ve been walking around in your talents and gifts like a kid in high heels. It’s nice to see.”

Adam smiled. He remembered the statue of Mary, alone in the dark, worn out but still smiling beatifically. There was nothing of that in his beautiful mother. But the effect of her smile was the same. An unequivocal blessing, feminine as a sunset.

“When are you going to see him?” his mother asked, jostling the coffee cups as she placed them side by side on the coffee machine tray.

 


End file.
